In which the writer finally describes the location.


    Research Station #DX192 was the textbook example of a cheap, barebones, and easily replaceable “floating blockhead” (like all efficient governmental infrastructure must be). Just take a look at the general design plan.


    We have four points of interest:


    <ul style="text-align: justify">


    <li>The Head. Where station controls and living quarters are located.</li>


    <li>The Body. Where the “arms” are space ports, while everything inside the “torso” contains all the good stuff that lets a station remain “alive”.</li>


    <li>The Fat. Where you put anything you want, like a laboratory for interesting ideas.</li>


    </ul>


    And


    <ul style="text-align: justify">


    <li>The Cold Feet. Where the unlucky crew can evacuate (after crossing the whole station) in a “shoe box” when the inevitable doom happens.</li>


    </ul>


    All constructed with the cheapest materials and engineering techniques that can still pass a safety-compliance test, despite having the most spartan of living accomodations for the 500 crew members that are required to keep it afloat with duct tape.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    It has no self-propelling power, so it depends entirely on “tug ships” to move it away from danger; most of its energy is supplied by twin solar satellites that always seem to attract asteroids; and most of its halls and hallways are no bigger than what you would find on a terran sea vessel (the exceptions being wherever forklifts must travel to supply the endless bulks of goods).


    Truly, #DX192 was worthy of its title of Titanic (MCMLIV) just like its ancestors, because it was a titanic effort to keep it running at all.


    But, workers being workers, it was also immediately baptised as Tigh Tunic because of its stupid shape and crammed space. And for more than half a century, the human crew endured the constant maintenance misshaps and repair emergencies that threatened the entire station whenever a space pebble cut through the hull.


    It was no surprise, then, that when xeno ambassadors declared the Tigh Tunic as the newest Mixed-Species Research Station in [Col Vera I], the entire human crew smiled in unison and immediately handed the keys to the nearest xeno before jumping on the Shoe Box and escape to freedom.


    The Jornissian administrator in charge took zero notice of this collective decision, knowing from before entering the station that she was being handed a piece of junk, and simply ordered the installation of a protective barrier and an army of drones to deal with “unreachable smol spaces”.


    Thus, Research Station #DX192 Tigh Tunic continued its lazy existence with the same haphazard reliability only possible through governmental management, the only difference being the sudden absence of its human creators.